Drip, drip, drip

It's the noise more than anything.

Two mornings ago I was making my way across the fields between me and the neighboring village with my rosary. I wasn't concentrating; I had a migraine.  I was depressed because I couldn't concentrate on my rosary, because I had a migraine, because I had the flu, and because I was awake.

Eventually I came to the shaded pond in the next village and got my shoes wet stepping through the snow that was left under the walnut tree, where the bench is.

This village can hardly be called a village at all.  There is a cluster of farm houses, a pond, a tiny, white, country chapel that looks like something out of a story book, a maypole, farm cats that stare at you as they bathe in the first bit of sun we've seen in a good three months. And everywhere in this quiet place there was noise-- birds, wind, flies, cows, and most of all, unbelievable dripping.  The sloped rooftops seemed to be losing gallons of melted snow through their drainpipes.

Sometimes you don't realize how very silent winter is, when God Himself seems to be staying indoors to catch up on crosswords or something. But one March day, everything comes back to life all at once.

You can almost hear the frost dripping off yourself too, and your heart beating again, just because you noticed.